Mosque developer has shoddy building record
By TOM TOPOUSIS and MATTHEW NESTEL
Posted: 3:29 AM, September 7, 2010
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The developer behind the planned Ground Zero mosque already has a lousy record with the city Buildings Department -- racking up $24,650 in fines for safety and construction violations at a Washington Heights apartment building that his firm owns.
The violations involve some of the department's more serious charges, from cracks running the height of the six-story, brick walk-up to blocked exits and fire escapes, falling mortar and an unstable chimney, city records show.
"Every time it rains, I set a pan on my bed and another one on the floor," said Don McCants, 61, a truck driver and longtime tenant of the building owned by mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal and his firm, Soho Properties.
"It's no drip, drip, drip, either," he lamented. "It comes down fast."
Since 2008, there have been 21 code violations at the building at 504 W. 159th St., which El-Gamal and Soho Properties purchased the previous year. Of these, nine violations are still open, and $19,500 in fines are unpaid. El-Gamal did not respond to a call for comment. A receptionist at his firm suggested writing an e-mail with questions to the Web site for the proposed mosque and community center, called Park51. There was no response to the e-mail, either.
Buildings Department records show that El-Gamal has been renovating apartments in the 21-unit, rent-stabilized building. On five occasions, inspectors ordered him to stop work because of hazardous conditions for tenants and neighbors or a failure to get city approvals. In December 2008, inspectors ordered all work at the building stopped due to "a failure to safeguard all persons and property affected by construction operations." El-Gamal was cited later that month for ignoring the stop-work order.
The most recent violation was handed out June 24, when inspectors found blocked fire escapes and passageways.
The city Department of Housing, Preservation and Development also has issues with the property, slapping it with 47 violations involving health and maintenance issues.
The violations, all of which are still open, range from unabated lead paint to plumbing malfunctions to problems with falling plaster and missing floorboards.
Still, new tenants living in renovated units had only good things to say about their landlord.
Archit Kmandelwal, a Columbia grad student who moved into a four-room, renovated unit two weeks ago, said, "It's clean. They're nice apartments . . . It shines."
But opponents of the mosque and community center said El-Gamal's disregard for complying with city laws and regulations at a small apartment building make them furwonder about Park51.
"It goes to his character, which we suspected all along is flawed," said Tim Brown, a retired firefighter who responded to the World Trade Center on 9/11 and now is a leading critic of Park51.
Complaints about conditions in El-Gamal's building are similar to those found in New Jersey properties owned by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the developer's partner in the mosque effort.
tom.topousis@nypost.com
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Ha ha ha. Hopefully, with this pofs' record, the mosque will just collapse and crumble anyway.
You idiots kneepadding Gamal look beyond foolish at this point.
Suckers.
